1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to land vehicles, and more particularly to an improved, handle-propelled vehicle having laterally spaced wheels and a tiltable frame body adapted to receive and sustain a removable disposable receptacle in position during dumping.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many different kinds of handle-propelled load carriers, known generally by terms such as xe2x80x9chand cartsxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cbarrows,xe2x80x9d have been proposed for use in carrying and dumping heavy loads such as soil, gravel, stones, fertilizers and other materials. One popular design is the conventional wheelbarrow, which comprises a load-carrying receptacle having a single, forwardly located wheel, a pair of feet located underneath a rear part of the receptacle, and a pair of handles extending to the rear. The conventional wheelbarrow has the advantage that its contents can be dumped by tilting the wheelbarrow forward or to either side. However, to propel the wheelbarrow, the operator needs to lift the handles to raise the wheelbarrow""s feet off the ground, and hold the handles in the raised condition while walking forward. With very heavy loads, the wheelbarrow places a considerable strain on the operator, and unless great care is exercised, the wheelbarrow can tip over and/or the operator can sustain serious and debilitating lower back injury while propelling the wheelbarrow.
Modified wheelbarrows having two laterally spaced wheels have been proposed, but are subject to the same problems that are inherent in the conventional wheelbarrow. Moreover, the modified wheelbarrows have the drawback that if their contents adhere to the receptacle, the receptacle cannot be easily replaced or a full one substituted in its place.
To facilitate dumping of heavy loads such as mixed wet concrete or cement, for example, hand carts have been designed with receptacles that tilt relative to a frame, and with various mechanisms for facilitating the tilting motion. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,193,319 B1 issued to Kielinski on Feb. 27, 2001 for a handle-propelled, load-carrying tilting wheelbarrow and U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,701 issued to Brust on Feb. 2, 1982 for a removable container gimbals mounting on a transporting car container.
Hand carts with laterally spaced wheels have also been designed with the axle of the wheels located behind the center of gravity of the load so that, instead of lifting upward on the handle or handles to propel the cart, the operator pushes downward, thereby avoiding the back strain encountered in operating a conventional wheelbarrow. However, none have been designed with the view that one person operates the vehicle for locomotion and a separate person operates the dumping of the receptacle while the first person holds the vehicle.
Examples of some of the foregoing hand carts are depicted in the following U.S. patents.
The prior art hand carts have all had limitations on the ease with which a load can be transported and dumped and on the re-usability of the receptacle where different types of pre-mixed concrete are ready and waiting in barrels for dumping at specified locations at a construction site. Even in the inventions of Long, Brust and Randolph, limitations resolved by this novel invention are encountered. Long, U.S. Pat. No. 2,895,238, describes a dump scoop having a load-receiving non-disposable, permanent body pivoted on a frame having a handle and rearwardly located wheels. Dumping is carried out by tilting the body on its pivot axis until a front edge of the body engages the ground, and then continuing to tilt the body forward, using a separate handle.
A principal object of this invention is to provide a novel dumping hand cart sustainer that has one or more of the following advantages: Operational safety with dumping performed by two persons, ability to handle and dump heavy loads of liquid mixed concrete and cement without difficulty and with a replaceable releasable substitutable receptacle.
Another object of the novel invention is to provide a dump cart sustainer for receiving a large heavy drum of liquids such as concrete, holding and locking the drum in place, manually transporting the drum in a basket of the sustainer to a work site, the basket being further adapted to hold the drum in place while tilting forward, horizontal, and downward whereby the contents of the drum are emptied while the drum is held on the sustainer.
The novel handle-propelled, load-carrying dumping cart sustainer comprises a tiltable steel basket frame adapted for receiving an open drum mounted on a movable cart platform. The platform has two front independently pivoting wheels and two rear wheels with braking sprockets, with the rear wheels being mounted on a common axle. The dump cart sustainer frame has a brake made of a rear wheel-engaging pedestal connected to a frame and extending downward therefrom at a location rearward of the axle; and the basket being pivotally connected to the platform by a post and pin structure, preferably adjacent to the front of the platform. The basket is pivotable forwardly and rearwardly about the pin from a hauling position, in which it extends rearwardly from the pin toward the rear of the platform to a dumping position in which it extends upward and forward of the front of the platform and post.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, suitable for carrying heavy liquid cement and granular loads, such as sand, gravel, small rocks or the like, the basket receives a removable disposable container. The basket is an aperture with a partially opened bottom, and an opened side wall. A selectively engagable lock is included and essential to the utility of the invention and prevents release of the container from the basket.
The dump cart sustainer in accordance with the invention not only provides for easy transportation and dumping of granular loads, but is also adaptable to easily repeated reloading with different non-cross mixable loads by changing the disposable removable container.
Other objects, details and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the drawings.